I I am extremely new to this game compared to a lot of you guys and I have been breeding crested geckos now for about three and a half years. I am still fairly small time and this past year I think I produced between 25 and 30 baby crested geckos so I have the opportunity because of the size of my collection to monitor them pretty well and do Wellness checks on them at least every other day. In the past year I have had at least four baby geckos that have had issues with shedding only on their feet and it has caused some toes to be lost and some to be fused together. I keep my hatchlings in small tubs about twice the size of a shoe box with three or four in each little Nursery bin. Every time this occurs it’s always one gecko out of the three or four in the bin but the other ones shed fine and have no issues. I typically mist all my little guys tubs once a day in the evening before bedtime enough so that there are droplets on the sides but not so much that they do not dry out thoroughly during the day. One keeper told me that I am misting too heavily and this is being caused by cork bark or other things in the bin staying wet and the geckos feet staying wet too long. This time it unfortunately happened to one of my very nice Lily white babies and I do not want this to happen to any more of my babies. It breaks my heart to see something permanently damaged on one of these animals and feel like I am responsible for causing it to happen. I want to give all of my animals the best possible starts and it is stressing me out that something I’m doing is causing my animals harm but I can’t seem to figure out why this happens because it seems very random
Hey there, i feel like the key to good shedding is proper ventilation. I mist my geckos lightly every day and ensure that the bins are dry between sprays. Relatively speaking geckos need the spray more for drinking than anything. I’m only saying that because babies often dont shed more than once or twice a month (at least from what ive been able to witness). Other reasons why gecko toes can get stuck together is due to them finger painting with their food. I’ve even had adults do this and their toes will be clumped until i soak them and clean it off with a q-tip.
I hope this helps!
Toes tend to come off because they are unable to shed properly.
I am in agreement with the food aspect. Babies in particular like to walk through their food causing their feet to get dirty and when they dry, they dry together, causing shed issues.
Try to soak the feet and if need be carefully use a q tip to help separate them.
Ventilation is very important, but I’m not so sure this has anything to do with toes. But I could be wrong.
It seems as though you are spraying regularly. What is the humidity of the enclosures? Wild geckos do not typically have anything below 80% I try to keep my Cresties between 60-90%. I find the Baby enclosures hold the humidity more than the grown ups, but this is because of the type of box it is.
I use the shoe box size tubs for my hatchlings for the first two or three months and I have 2 in round vents in the end of the tubs. I don’t have gauges inside of those little tubs but I missed enough for water droplets to be pretty prevalent on the insides of the tub and they always dry out during the day.
I think it is most likely dried food and I think I just need to start checking them more often